Brian Deshong has a new post to his site sharing some of the content (videos) from his upcoming CoderFaire Atlanta (April 20th) talk about web application performance that he's learned over his years in development.

Back in March, I gave a new talk at Atlanta PHP: "Top Ten List: PHP and Web Application Performance". This talk is a culmination of my ~14 years of experience primarily as a web application developer, but also as a systems administrator / DevOps-type. After working with PHP and web applications for so many years, I have amassed quite a few tricks for squeezing maximum performance out of web applications, PHP or otherwise.

The tips are presented by various people from around the web development (and PHP) community and relate to things like:

On Developer.com there's a new article with what they think are the top ten PEAR packages that every developer should know and use in their applications.

PHP developers also have another community-driven treasure trove at their disposal, one which is host to almost 600 high-quality libraries yet never seems to garner the attention it deserves. I'm referring to the PHP Extension and Application Repository, better known as PEAR, and in this article I'll try to shine the spotlight just a bit brighter on this fantastic community resource by highlighting 10 useful PEAR libraries (better known as packages) that have become an indispensable part of my programming toolkit.

On the SitePoint PHP blog today there's a new post from Craig Buckler looking at his top ten MySQL mistakes he as a PHP developer has made over time (and suggests a few things so they can keep from making them again).

database is a fundamental component for most web applications. If you're using PHP, you're probably using MySQL - an integral part of the LAMP stack. PHP is relatively easy and most new developers can write functional code within a few hours. However, building a solid, dependable database takes time and expertise. Here are 10 of the worst MySQL mistakes I've made (some apply to any language/database).

Joomla, the PHP-based, open-source content management system (CMS), has grown in popularity thanks to its wealth of templates, modules and components, as well as its ease of installation. In this article I present the most useful Joomla components I have found in my Web development. They cover everything from e-commerce to internationalization to SEO

The PHP::Impact blog has a new post that overviews the plugin system that the Symfony framework has to offer.

If you want to use the power of the Rails framework without having to learn Ruby, then Symfony is the right framework for you. After spending more than 10 months playing around with Rails, I can say that Symfony is a great alternative to Rails for programmers who already know PHP.

He talks about what a plugin is, how its used by the framework, the simple installation process and a "top ten" list of some of the most popular plugins (including sfGuardPlugin, sfSimpleForm and sfControlPanel).

The JSLabs website has posted a new list of what they see as the current Top Ten of PHP frameworks out there. It differs slightly from the previous list, including some of the newcomers and dropping some that have fallen behind.

The list is a cross-reference between the CNN/Money list of Top Ten places to live and the number of results from simplyhired. Of the top ten, Cary, North Carolina pulled in the most job posting numbers with 97 positions. Close behind it are two others in the 60s range - Ellicott City, Maryland (69) and Eden Prairie, Minnesota (62). The rest fall below the 30 position mark.

Every developer (PHP or not) out there has sat back in their favorite chair and thought about what else is out there. Well, Cal Evans is no different and he shares a tool he was linked to (by Terry Chay) that could help you find that "what's next" in your career.

I love Nashville, TN. Well, ok, I really like it. It's a great town but I'm getting a bit restless. The problem I face is that I never know what the environment for programmers will be in a given city before moving there. So when Terry Chay briefly mentioned indeed.com's salary search tool, it sparked my interest. If I, a PHP programmer, wanted to move to another city in the US, how would I fare salary wise? Since I don't want to list every city in the US, I've selected CNN/Money's Best Places to Live in America as my list of cities to compare.

Looking specifically for PHP-related jobs, he made the query, found the cities, ranked them and listed the average salary for the area. He also grabbed the cost of living for each location based on the closest large city and matched them up.

The result?

So it's agreed then, we'll all meet in Columbia, MD.

Check out the post and the lovely graph Cal has put together for more cities and their stats.